Do you always end up frustrated when trying a new SEO technique because you don’t get the results you expect? Even people who’ve been dabbling in the world of SEO for years can find themselves utterly confused, especially when Google releases a new update. Not to mention, it can prove challenging to keep up with all the latest developments while running your business at the same time. But by knowing the 6 SEO factors Google loves, you put yourself in a better position to attract high-quality leads.

1) Secure and accessible website

Your first order of business is to ensure that you have a secure and accessible website? Why, you might ask? The reason is that Google’s bots need to crawl your site easily. Otherwise, you risk hurting your ranking potential despite having high-quality content on your site. Remember that these bots aren’t as smart as humans. They must first reach your content before trying to understand what it’s all about. Adding a robot.txt file is a must. You should also include a sitemap that lists all the pages on your site.

2) Page speed

All SEOs would agree that page speed is one of the top 6 SEO factors Google loves. Google is constantly trying to improve user experience, and a fast-loading website will definitely help with that. As recently as July 2018, Google proved that they favor fast websites with the introduction of the “speed update.” This update means that if your website doesn’t load quickly on mobile devices, you might get penalized.

3) Mobile friendliness

Speaking of mobile devices, did you know that mobile searches have surpassed desktop searches already? This comes as no surprise since pretty much anyone with a smartphone or tablet uses their mobile device to look up information online. More importantly, though, Google already uses a mobile-first index. This means that the algorithm draws results from mobile-friendly websites first. It’s more important than ever to optimize your website for mobile devices to give your site more chances of ranking higher.

4) Domain age and authority

It’s interesting to learn that 60% of all websites that have a web page ranking in the top ten are at least three years old. This means that if you already have an aged website, you can gain the upper hand against the competition especially if you implement the other tips found in this article. When it comes to domain names, steer clear of exact-match domains. Branded domains are now recommended. Even if the name of your website doesn’t seem to be connected to your niche, it’s a matter of building your brand through effective content marketing.

5) High-quality content

Content is king! This statement is so true that it has become a cliché in the world of SEO. But there’s a reason why you should pay attention to your content—whether it’s a blog, a video, an infographic, or any other kind of rich media. Google even said that content is among the top three ranking factors. Keyword research is critical here, as you must find keywords that drive in the right kind of visitors. You should also leverage LSI keywords so you wouldn’t end up using the same keyword repeatedly in your content.

6) Technical SEO

This is where many marketers start to stumble upon major challenges. Technical SEO involves a bit of coding. Without the technical know-how, how can you make sure you’re doing things correctly? Thankfully, most content management systems have made it so easy to get your technical SEO right. Start with your page titles and make sure they contain your target keyword. The header tags should also be used properly. The title should be formatted as h1 and then the h2 and h3 tags must be used for subheads. Meta descriptions and alt tags for images shouldn’t be ignored as well because they can give your page that extra ranking power.

Building SEO backlinks is very difficult to do because if you mess them up the chances are good you could find your website penalized, but if you do them properly you could easily find your site ranking at the top of the search engines for a long time. With that being the case, you should know some of the tips that can help you in getting these links to guarantee your website is ranking at the top of the search engines, instead of seeing your website rank for a day and then get sandboxed because of the way the links were built.

Finding quality links in the same niche is going to be one of the most relevant things you can do. Yes, you can start to dominate the rankings rather easily for the website if you throw up thousands of backlinks all with unique content on each website. However, this is not often the best case scenario as it could lead to your website starting to look bad in the eyes of the search engines over time. Since this is the case, if you can find good quality links to link to your website from the likes of an authority in your niche, then you may only need that single link to help you rank higher than imagined.

Now, as was mentioned the quality is going to mean something, but so will the niche the links are coming from. The links you are getting should be coming from a site that is in the same exact niche you are in if possible. For example, if you are a camping website, then you would want to get links from a camping blog, camping supplier, or another authority. If you are running a water filter website, links from water companies or other like companies would help out more than a link coming from the latest in fashion design.

Finally, you need to make sure you are varying up your anchor text. The anchor text is what is going to be the actual wording that is going to link back to your website. By varying up the links here it will be rather easy for you to find the best link pattern and know your links will help you rank for multiple terms. What else you will need to consider is even using a bare link as well, when it is just the website URL. The key thing is to not use your keyword more than ten percent of the time.

When you find your website not ranking as highly as what you would expect, it can be very difficult for you to find the best way to get the site to rank. Since this is the case, you should know more tips to help you in building SEO backlinks. By using these tips it will be very easy for you to build the links your website needs to have, but also know your website is going to stick around at the top for a long time to come.

You have probably heard the terms content marketing and SEO utilized quite often if you have been plugged into the world of online marketing in the past several years. Furthermore, they appear to be utilized by the same sorts of people, in a similar context, and denoting to the same tactics.

This could all be a little confusing if you are new to the industry of online marketing. You may have trouble creating the line between those ideas, even if you are experienced. This is good on some level. SEO and fresh content for Google are two firmly intertwined techniques. However, you must know where each starts and ends if you want to get the most out of every dimension.

The High-Level View on Content

Let us begin by defining the techniques and goals of content marketing. Usually, the concept is to generate important content for the clients to use. The important content can refer to content that is useful, entertaining, informative, or practical. The kind of content does not matter a lot. It can be in the form of podcasts, videos, infographics, whitepapers, or blog posts.

The objective is to attract naturally potential clients to your website by providing them a thing they like (typically for free), and then encourage them to convert by creating a minor pitch for your services and products.

The High-Level View on SEO

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a sequence of strategies intended to improve the rankings of your site in search engines. This includes the individual pages within that website. Search engines rank sites based on 2 general criteria of aspects – authority and relevance. Improving relevance typically means tailoring your content to entice to a particular group of search users, while improving authority means making your website more reliable by generating greater content and earning links.

The objective is to improve the visibility in search engines by obeying with the ranking methods and expectations of search engines.

The Overlap

SEO and fresh content for Google share a similar space often since they both share the similar implied objective – to acquire more clients to the website. Also, they share a tool; content marketing is able to generate an audience by enticing to the readers and spreading over word of mouth and social shares. However, it is also a required ingredient for SEO.

The Differences

Generally speaking, SEO seems to concentrate on enticing users by appealing first to search engines and improving the ranks. Content marketing seems to concentrate on directly enticing to users, which appeals to SEO in turn.

You could argue that the main objective of SEO must be pleasing users. However, the real goal for Houston SEO is search engines, and the real goal for content marketing is user experience.

You need both content marketing and SEO working in harmony with one another if you want a complete online marketing tactic. It is difficult to strictly have one without, unintentionally or intentionally, dabbling in the other. Therefore, your task as a marketer is to look for the balance, instead of making a firm choice.